The Honey Badger Becoming The Unofficial Bitcoin Mascot

To begin with, here's how a Honey Badger looks like.

Honey Badger in South Africa

Honey Badger's Profile

The honey badger is a small, fierce mammal that is known for its fearless and aggressive nature. It's not afraid to take on much larger animals, such as lions and crocodiles and even eats snakes. In general, this animal doesn't give 2 $#&%!

So..., this fearless attitude made the honey badger a popular symbol for bitcoin, which is also a new and disruptive technology that is not afraid to challenge the status quo. In addition, the honey badger is also known for its intelligence and adaptability which are also shared by Bitcoin - a decentralized currency that is not controlled by any government or financial institution and was designed to be censorship-resistant and to protect the privacy of its users.

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What then?

It all began with a video that went viral in 2011 due to its hilarious commentary, showing a footage of a Honey Badger doing it's thang (original video was taken from NatGeo Special).

Nasty Honey Badger

A year later, Roger Ver, who was the owner of a computer store Memorydealers and one of the early adopters of Bitcoin, began to accept Bitcoin as payment. This was advertised via a billboard that shows an image of a honey badger as well as the word "Bitcoin".

Honey Badger and Bitcoin Billboard in 2012 (Roger Ver's Twitter account)

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Subsequently, the honey badger became a very prominent symbol in the cryptocurrency world which can be seen in the prevalence of the animal in various Bitcoin-related memes, names and events and even embraced by the Bitcoin community.

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Sources

Honey Badger. (2023). In Wikipedia. Link

Reiff. (2023). Who Is Roger Ver, aka "Bitcoin Jesus"? Link

Mcmillan. (2013). How Bitcoin Became the Honey Badger of Money. Link